“I am alone against hordes
An Táin Bó Cúailnge
I cannot stop nor let go
I stand here in the long cold hours
alone against every foe.”
This is part of a series of articles by a diverse range of figures working in Irish nationalist electoral politics looking back on the general election of 2024. This article was syndicated with permission from a piece by Daeln Murphy of The National Party.
The 2024 General Election is over. Barring the punishment of the Greens, the Irish electorate has largely returned the same picture as before: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin with a smattering of left-wing part-players to throw to the wolves whenever the main parties of government need red meat for the electorate. While the Nationalist “faction” did not return any seats, our vote shares are trending in a positive direction while our enemies’ are trending the opposite way: 300,000 votes in total were cast for candidates who oppose mass immigration to a greater or lesser degree.
Understandably, many people are frustrated and feeling smothered by the status quo. No doubt many people will blame these people, or those people, or this group, or that group; Irish boomers, foreigners, vote-riggers, parties, the mainstream media, etc. It is certain some amount of the blame does lie distributed among these groups, and our situation isn’t helped by the stolid and resistant PR-STV system. While stability is desirable in general, it always comes at the cost of manoeuvrability; when living in times of rapid political flux as we do now, it becomes more of a detriment than a help.
However, I am not here to point fingers at this man, or that group, or this process. The essence of politics remains the same regardless of the form. Instead, we must examine how we can improve so that we can strengthen our position, electorally and culturally.This will be a painful process, but nonetheless it is imperative we get it right. Excluding the possibility of a governmental collapse due to the likely more fractious coalition, we have five full years to work with. So, we must set clear goals (electoral and cultural) and identify what barriers lie in the way. I will try to formulate an electoral goal in this article:
Our aim is, by the beginning of 2028, that we have a concentrated Nationalist political party which is sufficiently organised to select the single, highest quality candidate to run in each given constituency, properly resource their campaigns and coordinate both online media coverage and on-the-ground activism, in order to secure an electoral breakthrough and increase our power.Let’s break this goal down into its parts.
Timing
First: the deadline of 2028. We want to have our ducks in a row at least one year before any election is called. This year, the mad scramble to organise campaigns and select candidates resulted in disarray among Nationalists, with heavy vote splitting and interpersonal conflict. Like heat-treating, doing things too quickly results in fractures within the structure, weakening it. Both Independent Ireland as well as the Farmer’s Alliance have experienced this first-hand, as have we in the National Party.
Many people feel as if Ireland doesn’t have this kind of time. I always emphasise that patience, while difficult, is essential to ensuring success and avoiding unforced errors. If you dislike that approach, my alternative answer is that you have no choice anyway – the next election is around five years out, so we are forced to take this time. By giving ourselves a margin of a year, we will have a margin to work with for any outstanding issues and for the actual details of running a strong campaign: canvassers, areas, data, content production etc.
Consolidation
Second: a concentrated Nationalist political party. No doubt, this will be difficult for many people to swallow given the attachment to grassroots campaigns and individuals who don’t like the idea of having to abide by a set of rules or structure. However – and I emphasise this – only a singular, organised entity has a future in Nationalist politics. There is a lot of political science and research behind this fact, and it is incumbent on us to educate as many people in the movement on these facts as possible, however this article will be long enough without going into the details of the Iron Law of Oligarchy, the Elite theorists, Pareto distributions and so on.
It is sufficient to understand only this: a small group of highly organised men will always defeat a larger group of disorganised men. The easiest demonstration with which we are all familiar as a result of the previous year is the Public Order Unit of An Garda Síochána – the riot police, or as I have termed them, the “Neo-Constabulary”. We have all seen how only a small force of Gardaí are needed to defeat masses of protestors, be it in Coolock, Dublin City centre or Newtown Mountkennedy. This applies to any endeavour in life, and is the single best move we can make.
With this in mind, Nationalists must defragment. The National Alliance is the first such attempt at this, and has had promising results, unlocking large groups of previously unlinked activist groups which made canvassing both easier to coordinate and able to cover a larger area.This is far and away the most difficult – but most crucial – element of this whole project. I understand the allure of the independent model – the control it allows. The race to power, however, is a high-speed, low-drag affair – anything which creates drag must be thrown away. Parties exist because they work – apes together, strong. Apes alone, weak. In your thinking, render it all down to a military force. Force, that is to say one’s total capacity to wield violence, is the core of all politics – which is why we have armies. How does an army organise? It works in units, with commanders, disciplined men who give up an element of their freedom in order to achieve a common goal, a singular purpose: victory. War is a continuation of politics by other means. We must apply these basic rules to our own actions. It will require compromise and discipline, as any army would. These are the realities of politics, and we must all be willing to deal with them or we will be picked apart individually and destroyed by the State – which itself is organised in just such a way as I have described.
The National Alliance thus far is the only group which has moved in this direction, and the general intention is to continue as we mean to go on. It may not be the final product, but is the first and most important step on the long journey.
Cooperation
Third: selection of the single, highest-quality candidate to run in each given constituency. There was understandably a number of people who stood up to represent Nationalism given the packed electoral year and the feeling that Ireland is “running out of time”. Two things happened as a result: vote splitting, and the selection of people who, while meaning well, are not suited to a role at the forefront of what is essentially a vanguard movement.
The former issue is an obvious detriment which we now have time to solve. It comes down to a question of legitimacy and competition – I do not have any detailed suggestions as it stands for how we should go about selecting which candidates or groups have a right to run in which areas. Again, the National Alliance has demonstrated that this is possible: three parties which ran against each other in the locals were successfully able to deconflict and work together on a shared political project; work which continues and is bringing these groups even closer into alignment.
The latter issue of candidate quality is more simple. The desire to serve is a healthy impulse. It is commendable that these people took the risk to their livelihood and reputation to stand for our righteous cause. However, this impulse must be guided with the knowledge that there are more roles which serve Ireland’s interests than running as a political candidate: canvassers, fundraisers, content creators, researchers, and more. Both Cllr. Patrick Quinlan and Stephen Redmond are good examples of quality candidates: Cllr. Quinlan has a long history of activism, and himself and Stephen Redmond are the only Nationalists who have actually gotten Irish families housed. There are many more good examples which it is beyond the remit of this article to cover – however it is eminently clear that we should put our best foot forward and develop a rigorous framework of selecting candidates who will keep up this high standard. In addition, we will minimise our exposure to reproach and reduce the rate of unforced errors, many of which hampered Nationalists in this GE campaign.
By developing a framework to settle questions of which candidate to run, as well as ensuring that the selected candidate is a professional, intelligent and capable political actor, we distill the electorate’s choice down to a singular, focused point with which to pierce through the Regime’s defences. This is the most dangerous thing we can do against the Regime as it stands – they benefit from an unconcentrated voter mass. Forcing all of this energy into a point is not something they have experience defending against.
Resourcing
Fourth: proper resourcing of campaigns, online media coverage and on-the-ground activism. You can do more with a greater pool of resources – this much is obvious. Increasing co-operation, reducing the number of candidates and networking will result in a greater ability to get a candidate elected even if financial means are only maintained and not increased. Financing this movement is, of course, extremely important. This mainly means costs for posters, leaflets, advertising etc. – but we must aspire to extend this to financing capability for lawfare, media production and other crucial ends such as research and think-tanks. There is a distinct lack of a Nationalist intellectual elite in Ireland, something which our very own Keith Woods is leading the way in changing; securing capital to establish publishing houses for Nationalist content and the various talented Twitter accounts who collate and produce cultural and intellectual content, for instance, would be a specific strategy which could benefit us.
This is essentially the role of an alternative elite, which we must cultivate: men of means who can utilise not merely their wealth but their connections to help us achieve this end. Professionalising this movement will increase our ability to attract and create the counter-elite we so sorely lack in Ireland.Similarly, the on-the-ground network generated over the GE campaign will likely be the most valuable thing to come out of it for us all. We must work to expand that network and increase our influence so that we can maximise our chances of getting a candidate elected next time. Independent Nationalist film-makers, who produced professional-grade candidate videos for the National Alliance, will be crucial to this not just in the electoral sense, but in the cultural sense I will cover in my next piece. The canvassing networks in each constituency form part of this also: it has been demonstrated that people of previously disparate groups can work together to propel forward a specific candidate. This establishes a base to further draw in activists to committing to further political work.We should also examine avenues toward international media, particularly people who are interested in speaking to Irish Nationalists online. Nationalism is rising across the globe, particularly in Europe, and we should exploit the wealth of experience other Nationalist movements (with the exception of English Nationalism, which exerts an invalid claim on Northern Ireland and is thus incompatible with us) have gleaned so that we may strengthen our home position and create allies. This has been an explicit strategy of the National Party for some time now, and it has produced benefits.
Finally: to secure an electoral breakthrough in order to increase our power. This is the central goal and we must never lose sight of it. Everything we do is to achieve power. As such, the rules governing the power game naturally apply. Once again, an in-depth examination of such rules and the study of power is outside of the scope of this article, although there are more resources than ever available online in an easily digestible form. While the National Party, for instance, has always been a vanguard group, the wider Nationalist movement is no longer grassroots and should not continue to pursue that model. It is time for the movement to advance and mature into a machine designed to produce better Irishmen and Irishwomen who can work effectively to secure the interests of the Irish people specifically as a unique ethnic group. There is nothing more important than securing as much power as possible specifically in aid of this goal.
Of course, power comes in many forms; it is not merely a seat in Leinster House. If you see a chance to get it, grab it and think about how you can use it to further our goals – that is how we should encourage people to think.
What we should also be aware of, however, is that there is another player with their own pieces on the board. They will use every trick in the book to stop us, beat us down and eliminate us. I cannot emphasise enough how crucial it is that we achieve a Nationalist machine that can protect its members from these attacks. If you cannot defend your people, they will not follow your lead. It is our people who are our most valuable resource; as such we must construct a movement which is resistant to the various moves which are made to subvert and destroy it.
Not only that, but we must develop a method of identifying people who are acting in bad faith, consistently detract from our unity, strength and power, and excise them from the movement. These people are tasked with creating friction, lying, manipulating people and demoralising us. These behaviours include, but are not limited to, calling out people in public (creating conflict, misunderstanding and embarrassing the movement), making up stories about this political group or that political group, and refusing to interface (or avoiding contact) with people who have demonstrated a will to contribute and work together. Thankfully, these players are obviously identifiable – no doubt some names will have popped into your head as you read this. Those who are genuinely interested in developing a healthy Nationalist scene in Ireland will act accordingly and show this publicly. Those who are not will refuse to do so and refuse to explain why.In the game of power, you win or you die. The stronger we get, the more devious and dangerous the Regime and its minions will become, resorting to increasingly powerful methods to stop us. Building a resilient and anti-fragile Nationalist vehicle is crucial to insulating ourselves against this.
An Todhchaí
To conclude, before us lies a complex and painful task. The upshot is that we have some breathing room with which to set about doing it. Let’s not squander this time that we’ve been granted so that we are all still bickering and splitting and producing friction the next time an election comes around. It is our foremost duty now to construct carefully a resilient, anti-fragile bloc whose sole purpose is increasing the power of Nationalism in Ireland. In this election, 300,000 votes went to parties and independents which had some stance on limiting immigration – nearly 14%. Explicitly Nationalist parties polled around 2.7%. For perspective, Sinn Féin in the early 90s polled 2-3%; with things accelerating out of control as they are, there is no reason we cannot achieve a similar trajectory in a shorter amount of time if we play our cards right.
If you are reading this article and nodding along with this singular vision, then it is your duty to contribute. The very existence of Ireland is at stake. The very existence of our people is threatened, that’s not in doubt. The only outstanding question is this:
Are you ready to get to work?
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